Simon Hipkins is a producer / director, photographer and cinematographer with 20+ years experience in broadcast production. Over his career he has worked for the BBC, Channel NewsAsia, Discovery Networks, Channel Four (UK) and Al Jazeera. Having started his career as a photographer and film editor, Simon takes great pride in creating films that create strong well thought out stories driven by dynamic images. As a photographer his work has been widely published and his work was selected by Magenta Foundation Flash Forward photography collection. He became interested in blockchain when he made 4 x 60mins TV series called ‘Inside the Cryptokingdom’ (CNA 2018).

Through his company KEY PICTURES, Simon has also been working in a decentralized way to support the development of Polkadot since its very conception - filming, photographing and interviewing key players since 2017. At his initiative he used some of the material to create the ‘Polkadot: Behind the Code’ series (2019-21) which he produced and directed. This 3 part short documentary was aimed at communicating the story of Polkadot to a wider audience and is still some of the most widely viewed video content on Polkadot today.

In addition, Key Pictures produced both the online versions of Polkadot Decoded and Sub0 during 2021 - working in the difficult circumstances of Covid-19 pandemic to organize the creation of studios in New York, Berlin and London.

Key Pictures has also provided filming and photography services for numerous Polkadot events over the years, produced an innovative NFT series and helped document the first Polkadot Blockchain Academy and produced a promotion film to inspire applicants for future academies.